Hell Fest – Film Review

On Halloween night, three young women and their respective boyfriends head to Hell Fest — a ghoulish traveling carnival that features a labyrinth of rides, games, and mazes. They soon face a bloody night of terror when a masked serial killer known simply as “The Other” (Stephen Conroy) turns the horror theme park into his own personal playground.

Even though horror is my favorite genre of entertainment, I have never gone to a full-on haunted house carnival attraction believe it or not. When I go to my local amusement park in the summer, I go to the small little haunted house they have there but it’s just kind of lame – it was quite literally designed for little kids so there isn’t anything inside that makes me jump except for the spider stuff (I hate spiders).

I’ve always wanted to go to a big haunted attraction such as Universal Horror Nights and maybe I will someday, but for now, all I can do is simply watch others online have fun while attending them. Or, I can also watch Hell Fest, which I just did – a film that follows a group of teens attending one. All is seemingly going well but they slowly realize they’re in grave danger when they spot a mysterious stranger following them throughout the night.

Hell Fest doesn’t do anything super innovative – in fact, it features an abundance of tired movie tropes that will make seasoned fans of the genre roll their eyes and scoff. There were a couple of scenes in particular here that genuinely made me shake my head in frustration. None of the characters are particularly smart and the stupid trope where the teen characters go their separate ways to investigate is essentially in full force here. And as we all know, what typically happens in movies and shows when characters go separate paths to investigate a killer’s whereabouts? More often than not, some people die.

This film has so many tropes in it and yet I still had an absolute blast while watching it, and it’s partly due to the premise. So many teen slashers will have the killer stalking their prey through a neighborhood or even in their own home, but seriously think about it – when was the last time you saw a slasher where the killer stalks a bunch of teens at a haunted carnival? Probably never.

It is somewhat understandable why these teens don’t initially suspect they’re being stalked at first, too, although after a while it does get a bit dumb. In one of the earliest scenes in the movie, our main group of characters are wandering through one of the various haunted houses when suddenly, a woman runs into the room bursting into tears and telling them to run. Seconds later, the masked stranger enters the room and proceeds to stab her. But the teens think that it’s probably just part of the act.

After all, they had to sign a waiver to attend the carnival so they just assume that it’s some hardcore, super convincing stuff the cast and crew are pulling off. However, it gets to be a bit dumb when, scene after scene of innocents getting killed throughout the park, they still don’t suspect they’re in any danger. It’s not until late in the film where they finally realize “Oh yeah… maybe that actually is a killer after all”.

But the kills are so much fun to watch even though the film is riddled with tons of tropes. There are plenty of incredibly entertaining, bloody, and genuinely clever kills that are peppered throughout this film that put a smile on this horror lover’s face. It’s nothing game-changing but there is just something so oddly exhilarating about watching a masked killer wreak havoc in a populated haunted carnival attraction.

Jose David Montero‘s cinematography truly makes all the vibrant colors in this film pop and trust me, almost the entirety of Hell Fest is drenched in neon and it’s never an eyesore. The carnival that these teens attend is adorned with various lights and the haunted houses themselves are intricately designed, and so I have to give major props to the set designers and decorators here for delivering some truly top-notch stuff.

It’s also a fairly well-acted movie as well, but especially by Amy Forsyth who essentially plays the final girl type of character but she makes it her own in ways that surprised me by the end of the story. Every scene where she had to show extreme emotion was incredibly convincing and she has an undeniable charm on-screen that makes it easy to want to root for her.

This movie never once tries to be some masterclass in cinema and it doesn’t really need to be – the intention of this film was to be an entertaining slasher with a fresh twist by placing all the action inside of a haunted carnival attraction. Is it filled with annoying tropes and characters that often make dumb decisions? Yes, sadly. But, in all honesty, I’d be completely lying to you if I said I didn’t have fun watching Hell Fest. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s still relentlessly entertaining and put me right in the Halloween mood.